A new study, aiming to determine whether certain factors, such as co-ops and internships, keep women in science and engineering careers, may give Burger a bit of insight.
Virginia Tech is the co-recipient of a National Science Foundation $499,990 three-year grant for this study. Burger is a co-investigator of this new study on female engineering students and how programs and other factors such as formal internships and co-ops affect self-efficacy -- or the perception of ability to complete a task -- and retention, which is the likelihood of completing a degree in a chosen field.
Burger will work with principle investigator, Rachelle Reisberg, director of Women in Engineering at Northeastern University, as well as colleagues from the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Wyoming.
Northeastern and Rochester have very formalized and required cooperative education programs, while Tech and Wyoming have what are considered optional internship or co-op programs. These universities were chosen as study sites because of their program differences.
Burger said that one theory is that when female engineering students gain practical, workplace experience in their field of study their confidence will increase and they'll stick to a chosen career.
Reisberg added that the study is looking to see whether such an experience will improve the likelihood that a female student will want to remain in engineering, or whether it will be seen as a reality check, an eye-opener to the fact that this was not the career path they actually had in mind.
"We're just trying to do a study to identify the factors that help or hinder women engineering students," Reisberg said. "When you enter into a study, you can't have conclusions in mind, but at the end, we're hoping to have guidelines to help universities across the country as well as our own to shape programs."
Burger also explained that the study will, in the end, not only benefit female students in engineering, but students overall. "There are so many positive things that come out of these co-ops for students. They bring expertise back to the classroom, and it helps the whole educational enterprise over time."
Fleur Gooden, director and camp imagination and data manager of the Center for the Enhancement of Engineering Diversity at Tech, said that 15.8 percent, or 923 out of 5,830 undergraduate engineering students are female. According to the College of Engineering's Web site, 163 of 1,111 bachelor's degrees conferred between summer 2006 and spring 2007 -- 14.7 percent -- were awarded to women.
An NSF report titled "Employed scientists and engineers, by occupation, highest degree level, race/ethnicity and sex: 2003" showed that of the 1 million-plus people recorded as employed engineers, 10.6 percent were women.
Burger said that the study will soon begin and surveys will be sent out shortly to all sophomore male and female students in the College of Engineering. Eight $50 incentive prizes will be awarded for participation, and the surveys will be distributed once each year over the next three years. Both male and female students are encouraged to participate, and the survey is geared toward sophomores because students generally go into internships and co-ops in their second year.
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